Dying Commitment (Lucky Thirteen) (6 page)

“I think it is you.” I wasn’t sure how I managed out the words, but they were slurred.

She smiled sadly, her hair falling over her shoulders as she looked down at me. “Then you’d be wrong.” She gripped my wrist and then I felt the cool metal surround it, clicking into place. I started to pull away, but I couldn’t move anymore. She attached the other side of the cuffs to the leg of the bed. It was an awkward position to be in, with my arm wrapped over the side like that. I couldn’t move anyway. “Have a great life, Bambi. Get married. Have little SEAL babies like Brody. Be happy.” She leaned over and kissed my forehead. “When you wake up, the key is on the table. If you stretch, you might reach it.”

And then she was gone, and the darkness loomed over me. I rolled myself off the bed and reached for the table, but I was losing the battle, the blackness creeping in on me, like slowly melting ice. My body burned hot with exertion, sweat forming over my skin. I couldn’t reach the table. I collapsed on the floor with a loud groan and then the darkness won.

CHAPTER SIX

Cadence

Portugal really was a beautiful country. Funchal was the Port of Call, and it was where I was getting off. There were two more stops before the cruise’s final destination in Barcelona, which was actually closer to Valonia but Jack would expect me to goto Barcelona.

Dylan wouldn’t be happy when he woke up, but that couldn’t be helped. I meant what I had said to him. We’d had a good run, but he’d keep me too human to do what I needed to do next.

That was the danger of forming friendships. The closer you let yourself to people, the less able you were to separate yourself and the more your heart engaged. And that was what I was trying to prevent. He was a decent guy. He did deserve someone without baggage, like Devyn was to Brody. God, how I coveted that relationship, but Jack and the NSA had ruined that for me. There would be no magical marriage for me. My heart wasn’t just broken. It was non-functional. And that was the way it had to be.

I stopped outside an older building. It had been newly painted by a few months, but the age could still be seen in the dusty buildup of the window or the rusty nature of the vent below the store window.

When I stepped inside, it was like being transported to another world that someone else inhabited. I hugged my hidden gun closer. I hadn’t been here in five years, not since the mission where I’d hacked Giroux security files. Not since right before Jack shot me. It was risky using someone Jack knew, but I also wanted him to know I was coming. This seemed to be the best way. There would be no sneaking around this time. No, Jack and I were headed for a confrontation of epic proportions. I was on the hunt and he was my prey. I was committed to dying for this, for one shot at killing Jack Allen. But even though I’d decided this line of action, I still felt terrified.

The man at the counter glanced up as I entered, his eyes flying wide. A string of Portuguese flew from his mouth, most of them of surprise and the rest profanity. I smiled. “
Olá
, Afonso.”

“You don’t ‘olá’ me,
senhorita
. How long has it been?”

“A couple of years, I think. Maybe.”

“It’s been five years.”

“I’ve been busy.” I shrugged. “Why do you ask questions when you know the answers?”

The big man came around the counter and enveloped me in a bear hug. “It is good to see you!” He squeezed me, and for a moment, I almost forgot what I was there for. He stepped back, holding me by the shoulders, and frowned. “You come here with gun. So not a pleasure visit.”

I shook my head. “I’m looking for Jack.”

Afonso’s eyes fell and he moved back around to the counter. “I have not seen him for many months.”

“But you have seen him?” I asked.

He nodded. “About a year ago, he comes by. Asks after you.”

“Me?” I leaned on the counter. “Why?” Wasn’t that the question of the day? Three years, no contact since I’d lost his trail, and then suddenly, Jack was in my game. And now, he’d been to see Afonso as well. He was planning something and I was walking into it, and like a damn freight train, I couldn’t stop myself.

“He asked if you were alive.”

“Why would he care?”

“That I do not know.”

“And what did you tell him?” Not that Afonso knew many of my secrets. I was good at lying. A sad talent to be proud of, for sure, but it was true.

“I told him truth. I had not seen you in years at that point.”

Which by the timing, Jack would infer that I had survived. That was what I wanted, right? For Jack to know I was alive, to know I was coming after him? Somehow, it was disconcerting to realize that he’d checked up on me. There was something else though.

“Forgive me for saying so,
senhorita
, but he seemed… pleased to know of your recovery.”

“Yeah, I’m going to keep on believing that’s a load of shit, Afonso. He shot me.” I sighed, holding my chin in thought for a moment. I was winging this stupid plan of mine, no real thought was going into this. I was motivated completely by revenge, by the idea of finally finding Jack. “You still have my box?”

“Of course,” Afonso said. “This way…” He gestured to the back room. I followed him back, glancing around at the rest of the silent store. It wasn’t until the door shut behind me that I realized my mistake. The only warning I had was the blur of a piece of wood that impacted with the back of my head. I cursed myself for trusting a man, yet again, and crumpled into blackness.

~*~*~

I’ve been hit before. Hell, I’ve been shot before. Everything hurts when you wake up, even if it’s just a blow to the head. My skull felt like it was a million pounds heavy. My neck cramped as I tried to lift my head. My shoulders ached from their current position.

As I opened my eyes in the dimly lit room, I found Afonso going through my computer.
My
computer. Or trying to. He kept emitting curses whenever my computer blocked him. I tried my hands, and found them bound to the chair I was in. You know, I always wondered how a person could get tied to a chair without trouble. When a person was unconscious, they were pretty much dead weight, which was hard to sit up. So, kudos to Afonso for being able to do it.

I gathered my senses, looking around the room for a moment. It was exactly how I remembered it years ago. No windows. No other avenues of escape except out the door I’d come in. Which meant I would have to do something violent to Afonso.

A moment later, I managed to speak, after the sixth time my computer beeped at him. “You have to know the passkey into the system before it will do anything.”

Afonso gasped and jumped back from my computer like it was going to bite him. This wasn’t the Afonso I knew. He’d always been calm and collected. Now, he was nervous, and sweating, not to mention jumpy as hell. A string of very racy Portuguese left his mouth.

“That’s pretty dirty, Afonso. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” I felt around the rope holding my wrists together. The knots weren’t super tight. I could work them loose.

“My mother died years ago. You know that.”

“Do I? Do I really know anything about you?” My head pounded, throbbing with pain. My vision was swimming and I’d already bitten into my lip enough to make it bleed, trying to make the spinning stop. But I wanted out of there, and I had to get the stupid rope loose to do it. “You lied to me.”

“Know that I take no pleasure in killing you.” A hint of silver flashed in the dim room. My eyes were drawn to the knife in his hand. “I’d prefer you to not fight me.”

“I’ve heard that before,” I replied, deadpan. Jack had said almost the same thing. “Let’s get it done with then.” The knife was double-edged, well taken care of. It meant something to him. Or he’d stolen it off someone else that had cared for the thing.

“I don’t want to,” he said. He shook his head adamantly. “You need to go home. Forget all this mess. Move on.”

“No,” I told him. “Jack is still out there.”

“He will kill you.”

“Don’t count me out yet. I’m not the same person I was five years ago, Afonso. Jack will not so easily take me this time.”

“No,” he agreed with a wistful sigh. “You are not the same. Is sad-making, that. You were such nice girl.”

“People change,” I replied. I finally got one knot undone. Afonso was amazingly bad at knots. Maybe it was the stiff rope he was using. And the idiot hadn’t tied my feet. Was it really going to be this easy?

“Yes, they do.” He sighed and turned back toward my computer. “What is on this machine?”

“Why?”

“Because Jack wants it. I need to know what the right price is,” he replied.

Oh, Afonso. It was bad enough that he’d betrayed me, knocked me unconscious and made my neck hurt. But he was also on Jack’s payroll? I shrugged. “There’s nothing on that machine he would interested in.”

“He seems to think he would be.”

“And that’s his mistake.”

Afonso turned thoughtful and faced the computer again. Slowly, I glanced around the room again. My gun and my jacket were over by the computer. Afonso was not a small man. If I wanted those back—and I did—I would have to knock him senseless too. This was one of the problems with my size. I wasn’t nearly big enough to stop a man like Afonso. I could do it, but it wouldn’t be as instant as I wanted it to be. Reality was that not every female agent in the world was Melinda Mae or the Black Widow. We had physical limits.

Slowly, I cased the room for something to use. The block of wood he’d used on me was over on the floor, only a couple feet away. The question was… could I get to it before he knew what I was doing?

The bell in the outer store rang, signaling the entrance of someone. Afonso cursed and walked toward the door. He frowned at me, but said nothing else as he went to go see his newest customer. As soon as he left the room, I let the loosened ropes fall and instead grabbed my gun. I checked it quickly to make sure he hadn’t taken out the bullets. I glanced at my computer’s screen, thankful to only see my primary passkey input. Afonso hadn’t even gotten past the first screen. What was he expecting to do?

I pushed the lid down and went to stand by the door. I didn’t want to have to shoot Afonso. He was making the best of a crap situation. But I wasn’t about to let him kill me either. My head still throbbed, but I could rest later, when I wasn’t about to be killed.

I stayed out of sight, but I did peek around to see who he was talking to. I didn’t recognize the man, but I couldn’t really see him either. He was tall, fit, wearing a black hoodie over his head, so I couldn’t even see his profile. I plastered myself back against the door when the man started to leave. Afonso would return soon.

I waited, not hearing the bell announcing anyone leaving. What was going on out there?

~*~*~

Dylan

I should have just gone home. Cadence drugged me. Me! And I’d fallen for it. I’d trusted her, and she reminded me why that was the biggest mistake I’d ever made. Maybe she was right. Trust only got you killed. Yet, I couldn’t manage to let it go

Instead of going home, I hunted her down, yet again. At least she hadn’t lost the shoulder holster. It still had my little tracker on it. I’d never seen a woman so damn stubborn about these things.

She had several hours on me when I woke up. We’d been docked at Funchal for at least a good two hours. I wasn’t sure if she’d snuck off the boat somehow before it docked or if she’d managed to wait until it stopped and disappear into the crowd. It was another hour before the cleaning crew came in. Thank goodness I’d taken that damn privacy tag off the door before, though the looks on that poor maid’s face when she saw I was cuffed to the bed was priceless. Nevertheless, she did hand me the key on the table.

And there I was, chasing a woman who didn’t want to be chased, tracking her down so I could keep her safe. I should have left her to her own devices. But I couldn’t. Damn it.

I tracked her to a small building across from the museum, but the man inside the store on the corner hadn’t seen anyone like her. The problem was that the tracker was still showing inside that store. So I left and sat next door at the small cafe. I called Brody in San Diego to do the check-in and studied my locator.

Cady had been stationary too long. I knew her. If she was trying to stay off the grid, she wouldn’t stay still that long. It was possible that she’d found and ditched the tracker, but I didn’t get that vibe from it. Why here of all places?

I paid for my coffee and went back into the store, the bell ringing over my head as I stepped into the store. The man appeared from his back room, shutting the door behind him as he came back to the counter.

He looked irritated, grumbling in Portuguese under his breath. It made me wish I’d learned Portuguese at some point. When he saw me, his frown deepened. “I tell you already… no girl here.”

“Oh, no, I got that.” I leaned on the counter. “I just don’t believe you. Reddish blonde hair. More red than blonde. Very athletic build. Leather jacket. Seen her?”

The man shook his head. “No.”

“Okay. So here’s the deal. You can take me to where you got her, or I can kill you with my pinky and hide your body in the nearest trash bin.” I didn’t know where I got that whole “kill you with my pinky” thing, but it seemed to have the right effect.